Dragon Lady Nails + I Heart MoYou London!

So a few weeks ago, my mom gifted me my first MoYou London stamping plate. It was love at first sight, but I didn't actually have a chance to try it out until now. And oh my goodness - they are just as amazing as everyone says and then some. PERFECTION. Who knew a little piece of metal and plastic could make me so happy?!

Haha anyhow, my mom chose well, and I got a plate from the Suki Collection - plate 07. It is so beautiful, I spent a lot of time just looking at it, but then, I thought I just had to use it and get it broken in. :) I decided to use the dragon image, because it is just too cool not to. Check out how awesome his face is! What?!

I started out with another new Zoya my hubby got me - Tinsley, then stamped the dragon's face and body using Konad Special Black, and filled in his dragon eye with Zoya Chita (a PixieDust I will show off in another post).

Here is Tinsley all by herself. I just love Zoya's shimmers, they are always the perfect consistency, and always paint on flawlessly. This is two coats.

Oh dear I love this so much, I can hardly stand it! I have a feeling there will be more MoYou plates in my future (oh why, oh why, can't I be RICH?!) Have a great night everyone!

Stamping With My New Zoyas

Hi everyone! My hubby got me some new nailpolish for our anniversary (12 years!!), so I thought it would be nice to use a couple of them in some stamping nail art. I decided to take a page out of Laurie's book (from Dressed up Digits) and do some double stamping. It always looks so awesome. I used Zoya Tilda for my base and stamped with Zoya Rikki using Mash-43. After that, I added a second layer of stamping using an old Sinful Colors polish called Last Change with BM03 and RA-115.

Here is Zoya Tilda by itself. It's a pretty apple green cream. I like this shade more on the nail than I did in the bottle. That is always good! I did two coats here.

Here it is before I added my last layer of stamping. It's really pretty just like this, too, but I love the dimension that double stamping adds.

Thanks for looking! I'll have more to show off soon as he also bought me two other Zoya's and a China Glaze polish. Yay!

June Julep It Girl Box

Hi all - this is it. My June box came back on 6/2, and I'm finally getting around to having all of these pretties swatched. This month's box came with pixi stix, which I have only eaten one of, but I plan to enjoy the other two slowly over the next month or so. :) Woo!

I've noticed that I am winding up with way too many metallics from Julep lately.  I have nothing against metallics, but shoot. I vote for more purples and glitters please! :D This is another reason why I plan to skip for a while. I just have so many Julep polishes and the rest of my stash is suffering. I need to save my money up and then maybe come back for some polish ONLY when they have a set of colors that I really need. NEED. That may be harder than it sounds.

Anyway, overall I liked these colors. Surprise, surprise. Julep, you are going to make me poor! I'm going to start off with my favorite. Why not?? I am so in love with all of their Stardust Finish polishes. This lovely teal one is called Jennine. She's a beaut.

Here she is with topcoat - so sparkly!

Next up, we have Phia. It is a dusty, purple shimmer, with gold flecks. It went on nicely, too, unlike the last couple of polishes I received from Julep. Since it was so thin, it took 3 coats, but it built up very nicely.

Last, is the metallic of the bunch, Savoy. I really just don't like metallics much because they are so streaky. I hate fighting my polish as I'm putting it on...I just want to wear the darn thing and enjoy the painting process. Is that too much to ask? Alright enough complaints, let me say what I do like about this polish. It's a different shade of gold than many of the others I have...leaning more tan than yellow. It was not too thin, and only took two coats, which I liked.

But those streaks...ugh. I'm just not a fan...and the polish stayed soft for several days even after Seche Vite. It kept denting, and you can see one of those dents on my thumb nail which I got hours after I had finished painting (I didn't take my photos until the next day). Boo for this one.

Well that is all for now. I caved and got the July box because it had a teal, a nice blue, and another Stardust polish. I'll have that review up soon, hopefully before the end of July! Thanks for looking!

Rainbow Honey Summer Mixtape Collection Swatches + Review

Happy Friday-eve everyone! Today, I have some swatches from Rainbow Honey's Summer Mixtape collection. They graciously sent me three full-size polishes from this collection to review, and I am so excited for the colors they sent! The collection has 12 polishes in all. To see more, head over to their website. The collection will be available to purchase tomorrow, on 7/18.

The first polish I have to show you is called Stolen Dance. Quick side note, here: I actually know all of the songs that these polishes reference. They all play regularly on my favorite satellite radio station, Alt Nation, so yay! I can appreciate these so much more because they are named after songs that I really love! This one is by a group called Milky Chance. Good song, and an even better polish! It is a lovely pale kiwi green with gold and purple shimmer. It went on very nicely, too. This is two coats.

Next up is Best Friend. I love this polish so much! It is one of the most awesome polishes that I own, hands down. And, it's named after a super-catchy song by Foster the People that I had in my head the entire time I wore this, and I didn't mind at all! It is full of multi-colored neon glitter in small hexes, large hexes, tiny squares and stars, black and white triangles, and purple iridescent shimmer! Eeeeeee!!! It went on well, this was about two coats. I didn't have to do any fishing, which made me really happy, and I didn't need to add topcoat; it was surprisingly smooth. I didn't want to take this one off, but after a few days, and some serious housework, I had some chips, so it was time to say goodbye...at least for now.

 Last, we have Fall in Love. Oh my - this one is named after one of my favorite songs! If you haven't heard of Phantogram, you need to get some in your life. Their music is awesome just like this polish. :) This one looked so pretty in the bottle...and then I realized it was a jelly, too. Bonus! It is a bright crimson jelly with blue iridescent glitter that makes in look more magenta. I went ahead and did a jelly stampwich with it so you can see it's potential!

Here is a good picture of the shimmer - it makes the bright crimson look more pink/fuschia. I like the sparkle.

Here is what it looked like pre-sandwich. :) I used Konad m63 and Mash-35 for these images.

Here it is sandwiched with another thin coat of Fall in Love on top of the stamping.

Thank you so much to Rainbow Honey for sending these beautiful polishes to me! I am so happy to be able to add them to my collection and share their loveliness with all of you. And I have something else to share, too: 20% from Rainbow Honey! Just use the code MIXTAPE20 to save on your next order from them! This promo code is good through 8/31/2014, so don't miss out on your chance to grab some of these pretties! Yay! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

The Great Polish Giveaway - Win up to 200 Nail Polishes!

Nail Polish Canada is hosting a huge polish giveaway, and it's growing by the day! I had to jump in on this because I want someone to win 200 polishes! (preferably me teehee)


Anyway, here is how it is going to work:

• The prize started at zero
• Bloggers get to post about the contest and nominate any polish to be added to the prize
• Each blog gets a personal entry form (so you can enter on every participating blog!)
• The prize can keep growing and growing up to 200 shades (the more blogs that participate the bigger the giveaway gets!)

It took me a while to settle on a polish to nominate...but I ended up picking this beauty!

NCLA A Touch of Class! I love me some creamy jelly with glitter!

Click here to see the official giveaway page, or here if you want to participate on your blog and nominate another polish (come on guys, let's make this thing huge)! Also, a great big THANK YOU to Picture Polish, Cirque and NCLA for sponsoring so many polishes. You guys rock!

Please enter the giveaway using my Rafflecopter form below! Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Julep May It Girl Box + Plie Wand Review

I received the May box a month ago, and have finally gotten around to swatching both colors while testing out the Plie Wand that they sent with them.

I honestly wasn't too excited about the Plie Wand. I tried it because I figured why not...but it didn't really seem like anything special. I didn't notice an improvement in my painting, or the comfort of the wand. I do however, think that it would be good for fine detail or dotting, but I already have long-handled fine brushes and dotting tools. I wanted to like it and be all impressed...but it just didn't happen. Maybe I will give it a go again at some later point. If my opinion changes, I will let you all know! Here is a (bad) picture of the Plie Wand in action.

This is Kam. It is a nice pale dusty green cream. It had a great formlua, but was thin, so it took three coats to get it to opacity.

And here is Jules. It is a nice pastel pink, but again, it was super thin, which frustrates me when the polish is so slow to dry. Of course, Seche Vite took care of that, so I guess it's not that big of a deal.

Thanks for looking. I already have the June and July boxes and will *try* to be quicker about getting those pretties reviewed. Oh also, I may not be getting these monthly anymore now that my husband is in school full time, the finances just aren't there for this unneccessary monthly expense. I have more than enough nailpolishes to tide me over until he graduates anyway. ;) Hopefully they won't have any nailpolishes that I just have to own over the next few months. heehee

The Neverending Polish Challenge - Best Granny Color

This will be my last post for this challenge, as I have no other polishes for the last two prompts, and I'm not about to buy any more! Now, as Jenna of Inky Whiskers would say, this is a "born again virgin untried" polish, heehee. I've had it for probably close to 20 years. It was one of the first polishes I got, and I just can't seem to part with it, even though it is awful. In fact, I dislike it so much, I plan to remove it within a day, and will begin swatching some Juleps which I am VERY behind on posting about. Anyway, here it is: this is Artmatic Elegant Mauve. Yep - it even has a granny-sounding name. :
P

This makes me think of my grandma...I think I will give her a call. Have a great week, and I'll be back later in the week. Now that I have no more challenges, I don't know what I will do with myself. Hopefully, I will come up with some sweet nail art for you all (after I share three months worth of Julep boxes with you)! Make sure to check out what everyone else did!

An InLinkz Link-up

The Neverending Pile Challenge - Free Polish - 4th of July!

Hi all! Of course I had to make my free choice day a 4th of July manicure! I have a lot of celebrating to do today, so this will be brief.

This is Julep Scarlett for the base. I stamped with Konad Special White using an image from Mash-49. I then filled in some of the stars with Julep Carly. Scarlett and Carly were both given to me by my aunt who didn't want the colors. They work perfectly for today! Yay America! :)

Here is Scarlett all by herself. This is a gorgeous bright red with flakies in it. It's a bit of a jelly, too. I did three coats here to reach opacity.

Off to a picnic - everyone have a safe and happy holiday! And to all of my readers elsewhere, have a wonderful day!

An InLinkz Link-up